W.H. Graham for the Lovington Leader--Hobbs--Hard to believe. A veteran oil company executive who once headed a globe-girdling oil company is calling for a new regulatory agency, the Federal Energy Resources Board - - FERB if you please.

But wait, there is method in his madness. For this new over-arching regulatory giant he would trade oversight authority of 26 legislative committees and 13 government agencies that have regulatory power over the U.S. energy business.

The byzantine regulatory complex would thus be reduced to one authority instead of the 39 that oil and gas producers, refiners, and marketers now face. Maybe he has something there.

John Hofmeister, former president of Shell Oil Company, thinks this could relieve the suffocating blanket that the industry must now operate under. The only problem is, the idea would have to be sold, and that won't be easy . Lawmakers and federal agencies are loathe to surrender authority and power.

Hofmeister is taking his plea to the people for relief. He says only a popular uprising can effect such a change. So he is out on the hustings in quest of this difficult goal.

He took part of his campaign to Lea County Tuesday night, when he spoke extensively at a meeting sponsored by the New Mexico Center for Energy Policy at Tydings Auditorium in Hobbs. His one-hour presentation--delivered with no notes--was followed by another hour of open mike questions and comments from the audience. It all made for important listening.

Hofmeister says the U.S. is at a "critical junction" that will determine "what our country will be or will not become."

Despite some market relief on the price of gasoline at the pump and natural gas in the meter, "We are not better off than we were because nothing has changed. The situation is no different than it was fifteen months ago" (when oil prices plummeted).

Hofmeister believes that unless policies change (which he does not expect), "the price of oil will be triple digits within the next eighteen months."

The U.S. energy picture is clouded by laws and regulatory oversight that are contrived in "political time" which he says is vastly different from economic timetables.

This political time runs in two, four, or six-year cycles that are tied to elections. On the other hand, energy planning takes years or decades to implement and turn into action. A federal agency stocked with experts who understand this dichotomy can regulate with long-range rather than shortsighted plans, he is convinced.

Hofmeister had some good news. "We have more energy in this country than we will ever need, fifty or one hundred years from now. We'll never use all of it." He included not only oil and gas in this evaluation, but coal, nuclear, wind, solar, and other forms of energy that can be tapped. The secret is to access it and develop it.

On the bad news side, Hofmeister predicted that unless more realistic energy policies are adopted, the nation will face severe energy shortages within the next 18 to 20 years.

The U.S. today relies on 600 coal and 104 nuclear plants to produce its electricity. Hofmeister says many of these plants are approaching the limits of their service life and will have to be upgraded or replaced.

The "energy independence" which U.S. leadership has sought for years is "a nonsense play on words," Hofmeister says, predicting that unless policy change is implemented, shortages will be the realization of goals set by the last eight presidents.